Thanks for pointing this part out. It has been overlooked until now in this thread.
On an related aspect. Universities and other funded research labs have mandatory Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) that strictly oversee all human and other animal research. It is an insanely meticulous process and taken very seriously for both ethical and financial reasons. For those of you out there who are like me and have conducted primary research then you know that the hoops that you must jump through to do human (even non-invasive) research can be nearly overwhelming.
While some of us may disagree on the types of research that should be conducted, I can tell you first-hand that the oversight of any research conducted at an entity that receives federal funding is stringent and serious. That standard holds for whether the research is federally funded on not.
And, stem cell research has mostly been funded by private dollars. In the past Bush-era, it was limited to $250K/yr. (if I remember correctly). That amount is gone in a millisecond. I think the private sector will step this up as well.
I've copied this from AP writer: The president said his administration would work aggressively to make up for the ground he said was lost due to Bush's decision, though it can't be known how much more federal money will be spent on the research until grants are applied for and issued.
Can private research be more efficient? This from wikipedia, which can be edited by just about anyone (but, I think is a pretty good source):
[edit] Government-funded research allows basic science
Government-funded research into such matters as the nature of
quantum mechanics or the existence of water on
Mars
Since the value of such knowledge is often difficult or impossible to judge, and no commercial benefit (at least on any relevant time horizon) can be derived, a frequent apparently common-sense position is that therefore such knowledge should not be pursued at public expense. However, even in the most theoretical of fields, it is often difficult to determine in advance where research may lead.
For example, decades of research into quantum mechanics have made possible work on
quantum computing, which is now expected to be an even greater leap forward in computing technology than the development of the
microchip, which in some areas is beginning to reach the limits of what is physically possible with this technology. It remains to be seen whether the inherent technical difficulties in quantum computing actually allow for a widespread application of this technology.
[edit] Privately-funded research is profit oriented
A characteristic of privately funded research is that it is almost always profit-oriented. In other words, private corporations tend to devote a relatively small investment to fund research into a field that shows little prospect of being profitable in the near future, even if such research could lead to highly beneficial results (for example, drug companies may not want to invest in finding the cure for a disease if most of the people affected by that disease are too poor to be able to afford such a cure). Some protest that cures and treatments for rare diseases are not pursued due to the lack of profit potential. Supporters of commercially funded research make a
utilitarian argument, saying that the fact that profit potential directs investment in treatment for diseases that afflict the many individuals rather than few individuals is a good thing, since it results in alleviating the greater amount of human suffering.
[edit] Privately-funded research is more efficient - The Human Genome Project
An often-quoted example used to illustrate the difference in efficiency between government-funded and privately funded research projects is the quest of mapping the human genome. The U.S. government was funding such a mission, called the
Human Genome Project, while at the same time the quest was being pursued separately with private venture capital by
Celera Genomics.
Celera Genomics used a newer, albeit riskier technique and proceeded at a
faster pace and at a fraction of the cost of the tax-funded project (approximately $3 billion of taxpayer dollars versus about $300 million of private funding). Some HGP researchers claimed Celera's method of genome sequencing "would not work," however that project eventually adopted some of Celera's methods.
However, some researchers in the field of genomics have claimed that this comparison is unjust. Much of the funding provided for the HGP served the development of new technologies, rather than the sequencing of the human genome itself. Since Celera was a late-comer the company could already take advantage of the experience gained by the HGP. Though Celera's sequencing strategy allowed the sequencing of the majority of the human genome with a lot higher efficacy, the strategy used by the HGP allowed the sequencing of a higher percentage of the genome.
, in a year our budget deficit will be $2 trillion; our debt will approach $13 trillion. If you support federal funding for stem cell research, when do you want our government to stop deficit spending? Would you make cuts to offset this spending? If so, in what areas?
